Hunterdon Healthcare in New Jersey is shifting applications to cloud providers in order to tap into security capabilities and innovation that doesn't run as deep in the integrated healthcare delivery system's own technology team, says Jason Tahaney, the organization's director of IT.

"We really don't feel like we have the expertise in-house to continue to develop products that are secure and safe," he says in an interview with Information Security Media Group.

Moving applications to the cloud "has helped us take the complexity out of security and put us in a position with cloud-based solutions that we know are innovative ... and strong, especially around cybersecurity," he says.

"We get these [security] features by default - and while you do have to turn those [features] on, we feel that's a very powerful thing to have," he says. "So, we don't have a lot of the traditional security concerns about moving to the cloud - we see it differently. We see it as an overall way to greatly improve the security posture of our organization."

Email Security

Sizing up his security concerns, Tahaney says email security - especially mitigating the risks of phishing attacks - is at the top of the list.

"We do a lot of very good things around protecting the organization with email technology - training, education, awareness. As these threats evolve ... it's always a moving target, and we try to stay one step ahead in terms of cybersecurity technologies and training we put in place."

Tahaney is the director of IT at the Hunterdon Healthcare, an integrated healthcare delivery system based in Flemington, New Jersey, which includes a178-bed teaching hospital. He has deep experience in healthcare IT and cybersecurity, with a focus on working in the hospital and healthcare industry.